Thom Hartmann: Without Privacy There Can Be No Democracy

[thomhartmann]

The president of Brazil - Dilma Rousseff - spoke this morning at the United Nations and delivered a powerful indictment of spying by the NSA on behalf of the United States. She said - "Without respect for a nation's sovereignty, there is no basis for proper relations among nations," adding that "Brazil knows how to protect itself. Brazil ... does not provide shelter to terrorist groups. We are a democratic country." The Brazilian president is so outraged at American spying - both on her country and on her personal emails and her personal life - that she canceled a state dinner with President Obama. While most Americans see this as a rift between Brazil in the United States over the issue of our spying on them - President Rousseff highlighted the most important point of all elsewhere in her speech this morning. She said - "Without the right of privacy, there is no real freedom of speech or freedom of opinion, and so there is no actual democracy." This is not just true of international relations. It's also true here within the United States.

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